Despite the ceasefire Benghazi is still under attack from al-Gaddafi loyalists © Al Jazeera English
By Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International crisis researcher
The situation has significantly deteriorated in Benghazi and elsewhere in eastern Libya in the past few days. Since yesterday, while Colonel al-Gaddafi’s spokespeople reiterate that their forces are observing a ceasefire, armed al-Gaddafi loyalists – who people identify as members of the lijan thawriya (Revolutionary Committees), groups of loyalists who acted as informers and intelligence gatherers, among other tasks, and were omnipresent in towns and villages all over Libya – have sprung into action in the city, carrying out targeted and indiscriminate armed attacks.
Continue reading ‘Tensions rise in Benghazi as al-Gaddafi forces mount attacks’
Gabriel Rufyiri is working for an organization called the Anti-Corruption and Economic Malpractice Observatory. Amnesty International
By Tom Gibson, Amnesty International’s campaigner on Burundi.
Greetings from Bujumbura, where myself and Amnesty International’s Burundi researcher Sarah Jackson will be for the next two and a half weeks. Our trip falls right in the middle of the election period.
Before I even landed, people warned us that the situation is tense. Opposition parties refused to accept the first round of elections and pulled out of the presidential elections on 28 June. With further legislative elections planned for the end of the month, no-one is quite sure what is going to happen.
People are scared of a return to violence. Recently, there have been numerous grenade attacks inside the capital and in the countryside, known as les collines (the hills). Buildings belonging to the ruling party have been burnt. A political opponent has gone into hiding.
Continue reading ‘Election tension in Burundi’
By Clare Fermont, editor of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa publications
Since my recent return from Yemen after an Amnesty International research visit there – my first – people keep asking me for my impressions of the country.
My answer, in short, is that I was overwhelmingly moved by the people, in particular the many traumatized families we met who had reached the capital after gruelling journeys to escape conflict in the north.
Continue reading ‘Moved by the people of Yemen’
Andrew Philip, Amnesty International researcher, blogging from the field
Today we spent the day at Nakivale camp, 300km away inside Uganda from the Congolese border, speaking to more refugees, including a 14-year-old boy who was on his own in the camp. Crying his eyes out, he told us how he has found his father, mother and sister shot dead inside a hospital in Eastern DRC. A man described to us the killing at point-blank range of his neighbour and friend. There are a lot of very traumatised people at the camp and at Ishasha.
Continue reading ‘Fear and trauma at Nakivale refugee camp’
Andrew Philip, Amnesty International researcher, blogging from the field.
Back in Mbarara, after a strange sort of day.
We went back to Ishasha this morning. Yesterday many more people had arrived and the camp and the town were jam-packed with people.
Humanitarian agencies there are now overwhelmed, doing their best, trying to organize the evacuation of refugees to other places and refugee camps further inside Uganda where they can receive them.
Continue reading ‘CNDP take the DRC part of Ishasha today’
